Should I buy?

XCOM2?

I haven't played any of the XCOM franchise, buy right now its 60% off on steam. Should I buy? I think the concept looks neat and I love strategy games.

Yeah it's pretty good cost to potential hours/content ratio.
I'd pick it up.

I used to hear there was a problem with some sort of timer? Is that still an issue?

>and I love strategy games.
Then play openxcom

I prefer Enemy Within, but 2 is pretty good

The game puts a on time pressure to make your decisions count
You can't stall forever, either in the strategic game or in most tactical missions

Some missions must be completed in a limited number of turns.

There's a mod that doesn't start the timer until you're squad is spotted (I use this, makes it much more fun). Alternatively, you can get one that disables them altogether.

The workshop for XCOM 2 is chopped full of mods too, I'm sure you'll find something that'll make the game more enjoyable.

EW is my favorite too. I still play vanilla from time to time, not sure I'm ready for LW yet though

To provide context, a timer until alien forces show up en mass is on at the start of many missions where you are also "incognito", creating a "X number of turns" challenge to it. Some (myself included) see this as a bit convoluted as how can they be converging on your location if they do not know you are there?

So its a bit of artificial challenge to make the game flow better and so that you cannot completely avoid conflict which is easy to swallow in the game.

Timers are an irritation. They introduced a stealth system, but it's rendered fairly redundant by the fact that 90% of the missions are on too stringent a countdown to actually take take your time trying to sneak around, and even if you manage to, you'll just get yourself sandwiched between two groups.
Other then that it's a decent game. Steam workshop support is a nice addition, easy to go install a few additional classes, customization options, ect, as well as tweaking things like the timers to be more to your tastes. I find a mod that makes the timer not start counting down until your team is actually discovered is perfect.

Once you've completed EW, the only way to get ready for Long War is to play LW and lose.

I find it baffling that the timers tick while you're in stealth.

>I haven't played any of the XCOM franchise
Why the fuck do you want to start with the worst one then

I don't know why but this game fucks up my cpu fan

Some missions(a lot of them in 2) have a limited number of turns in which you can complete them. This is an issue, but it's not a problem, there are multiple mods that change them or remove them completely.

Buy it, play it on veteran on your first playthrough, and if you get the DLCs keep them enabled when you start the campaign, if you "disable" them, you will still get the DLC and get assfucked by the challenge DLC boss battles. The game tells you this, but a lot of people don't actually read it.

Game pace wise, I can swallow it.

For near all other reasons, they should have allowed for proper prep by the playyer, including even the reason of demonstrating such actions in the original trailer.

They should just ultimately keep the challenge of not being revealed more and more difficult as you get deeper into a map.

This. It's a classic and any strategy game fan should play it. It's hard to get into with modern predilections, but certainly worth it.

True Concealment is the best mod.

That said they explain to you in the game that you only have a limited window to get whatever before they leave or wipe files or whatever.

>wipe files
So they're just constantly destroying assets, then?
Because they're doing this shit all over the world

Well i assume it's more like they periodically move them to more secure locations or delete evidence of their secret doings.

The way I justified it to myself is that they detected a big fuckoff dropship in the area and take precautions even if they don't specifically know where you are.They know you're in the AREA, but not exactly where you are

On some, others it was really vague and not nearly good enough.

And yep, the mod is quite popular from demand of it to play out that way.

What are some essential alien games? I'm assuming xcom is one of them

Original Xcom, Xcom Enemy Within, Xcom 2, Area 51, the one released by the US Airforce, not the shitty Blacksite one..

thanks, user. Been needing a good fix of alien vidya.

If you are going for a bit of spookyness, Xcom 2 isn't really spooky, but the other Xcom games do have that spooky atmosphere, although obviously they aren't like horror games or anything.

In the case of Enemy Within, note that it is an expansion for Enemy Unknown, but it's not like an additional or new campaign, it's basically new stuff for the existing campaign of Enemy unknown, so if you play Enemy Unknown first and then jump to Enemy Within you'll go through the same campaign but with new stuff like new enemies and shit.

>buy xcom1
>shit crashes all the fucking time
Dammit why I just want to play MECs again, shit's more fun than SPARKY.